Khat Workshop @ Esplanade [2017 APR 22-23]

Khat Workshop @ Esplanade: Tapestry of Sacred Music

Beginners’ Arabic Calligraphy Workshop

2017 April 22-23 : Sat-Sun. 10am. Esplanade, Bay Room. Singapore.

From 2012 to 2014, we have been conducting workshops at the Esplanade. We did the “open” style, or open-workshop: open to public, free-flow seatings, first-come-first-serve seats, stay and play all you want, come and go as you wish, along with free flow of worksheets. With over 500 participants within total span of 6-8 hours, yes it was a hit. And also yes, very messy indeed. We have gatekeepers, headcount monitors, security officers, and massive queue and passing peeping traffic. Then, we moved on to “closed” style, a very controlled workshop: limited registration of seats, limited time, and a closed venue with much comfort, space and privacy for participants to breathe well with the activities.

So here it is 2017, we were called up for a comeback. We made a stronger emphasis on the objective for “beginners'” workshop. We cut off all visual aids, and we go back to the intimate basics of story-telling-demonstrations and follow-to-practise. With no gadgets involved, under limited 90 minutes, it went much better than expected. The primary objective: to foster relations between the person, the pen, the ink and the paper. Only then, they’ll be able to explore the alphabetic forms.

But seriously, we really hope for a good 120-150 minutes. It takes time for the participants to grasp the feel of the materials and the alphabet. While it’s a quiet world on the outside, it’s a world of multi-dimensional conversations on the inside.

It feels great returning to Esplanade. We discovered interesting frequencies and textures of different people. Some come being naturally curious and adventurous, and some may appear from a different whimsy wonderland. And there are those just appeared very stoic and sophisticated.

Thank you to the managers and producers for this opportunity of sharing calligraphy with the public. And thank you readers for dropping by exploring our photos. We hope to see you in our sessions!

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FS/2017/May/30

THANK YOU ESPLANADE, SHIREEN & XIANGHUI.

To take a look on some of our past workshops by Faddho, feel free to explore the links here: